


Solstice, Equinox

by asuninside, wintercreek



Category: Glee
Genre: Audio Format: M4B, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Community: pod-together, M/M, Original Character(s), Podfic, Relationship Work, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-26
Updated: 2013-08-26
Packaged: 2017-12-21 14:47:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/901532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuninside/pseuds/asuninside, https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintercreek/pseuds/wintercreek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine and Kurt and a look into the long process of personal revelation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Solstice, Equinox

**Author's Note:**

> This work was written by wintercreek and recorded by Izbit.
> 
> Thanks to Hedgerose for betaing the text!

[MP3](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2013/Solstice,%20Equinox-izbit,%20wintercreek.mp3)  
[M4B](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2013/Solstice,%20Equinox-izbit,%20wintercreek.m4b)

Blaine meant it when he said that he'd looked at Kurt singing "Blackbird" and thought, "Oh, there you are. I've been looking for you forever." It was a powerful moment. A world-shifting moment. It hadn't been a bolt of lightning; more like a beam of light breaking through cloud cover. Blaine had been alone, so alone, and lost, and then there was Kurt.

But "Blackbird" wasn't the only thing that had happened to open Blaine's eyes. There'd been their other conversation, too, when Kurt had easily and freely admitted that he was jealous of Blaine. Blaine had _never_ expected Kurt to agree when Blaine suggested he was jealous. "Do I detect a little jealousy?" was nothing but a teasing remark, the kind Blaine's mother used to get him to stop whining about Cooper and remember his manners. Kurt's matter-of-fact "Oh, you detect a lot of jealousy," had floored Blaine for a moment.

He'd recovered, of course, but the way Kurt hadn't cringed, and hadn't backpedaled, had kept Blaine up thinking that night.

Some of it must have to do with Kurt's dad, he'd concluded. Having that kind of love behind you - having a dad who loved you when you said you were gay, who loved you when he found your hung-over friend in your bed, who let you overstep your bounds and boss him around about his health - it must make you fearless. Or if not fearless, _brave._ Brave like Kurt.

And it _was_ love. Burt wasn't some pushover; he'd proved that when Blaine had overstepped by asking Burt to educate Kurt about sex. Which had also proved that Burt's support of Kurt didn't come from being some perfect ally to gay youth. It was personal. It was about Kurt.

Blaine found himself worrying this over during class, during lunch, while driving home from Dalton and back in the morning. Kurt was himself because of Burt. And Burt had become the father he was now because of Kurt.

Then Kurt sang "Blackbird." And Blaine had not just a moment, but a string of moments. Here was Kurt, again, backed by love. It didn't matter that this time it was his love for a canary. Blaine's thoughts had rolled straight from "I want the power of loving like that," to "I want to be loved like that," to "Oh wow, I want to love _Kurt_ like that and have him love me back just as fiercely," to "Oh, _there_ you are. I've been looking for you forever."

He'd tried to tell Kurt about all those moments. Then they'd gotten so delightfully distracted by kissing and singing and weaving their voices around each other as they paced their choreography across the floor. Blaine told himself that Kurt probably knew what he was trying to say. He promised himself that he'd add his love for Kurt to Burt's, and even if it was a candle next to Burt's floodlight right now, it would grow.

When Blaine stumblingly poured this out to his therapist, words rushing forth endlessly along the path from their lovely beginning to their horrible end and Blaine's mistake with Eli, his therapist had leaned forward and said gently, "Blaine, did you tell Kurt any of this?"

"Of course I did!" Blaine protested. "I told him what I was thinking. That I'd been looking for him forever, and I finally saw him."

"But the rest of it?" She raised an eyebrow. "Someone can love you very much and still not know what you need. That's why it's important to use your words."

Blaine looked down. "I— No, I guess not. I thought if I dedicated myself to loving Kurt, he'd do it back the same way. And he didn't."

That night Blaine found himself with another thought troubling him, as the puzzle of Kurt and Burt had. Should he have flat out asked Kurt to dedicate himself to Blaine?

After a week of worrying at it, Blaine opened his next therapy appointment by skipping right over saying that his day was fine, thank you. Instead he demanded that his therapist tell him what he should have said to Kurt. His rudeness made him cringe for a moment, but he told himself he had to practice being direct.

Shaking her head, she said, "It's not like that, Blaine. I can't give you a script for something like this. And the deeper issue here is that it's not healthy for you to have one person whom everything rests on. Tell me about your friends now."

Blaine told her about Sam, and about Tina, and how even with all the weirdness of Blaine's crush on Sam, and Tina's crush on Blaine, they were still friends. _Best_ friends, friends Blaine could get mad at or screw up in front of, and it would be okay.

"Was it that way with Kurt?" his therapist asked. She sat there, infuriatingly neutral, and waited for Blaine to figure it out.

"It was," he finally said, "when I let it be. I spent so much time trying to love him perfectly and pretending that nothing was wrong, so he'd never have a reason to stop loving me. Sometimes he figured out what was wrong on his own, and he always loved me anyway."

His therapist hummed thoughtfully. "And what about other times, when Kurt didn't figure it out?"

Blaine sighed. "I ... I guess that's how Eli happened."

He went home that afternoon with a new perspective to turn over in his head, like a small stone in a rushing river.

The next time Kurt called Blaine, Blaine took a deep breath and asked if they could talk about how things had ended.

Kurt was silent for a long moment, and then he said, "Why don't you come over?"

Blaine counted that night as the point at which they began rebuilding their connection. He was terribly, dangerously honest with Kurt. And Kurt listened, deeply and intently. When Blaine finished speaking, he felt empty, but in the best way. Emptied out of worry and second-guessing. He'd given it all over to Kurt, and Kurt was holding their whole past.

Leaning over, Kurt took Blaine's hand. "Thank you," he said. "I hope that helped you to say. It certainly helped me to hear."

Blaine replayed those words in his mind when Kurt called to talk about his trouble with Adam, and when Blaine poured out all his anxiety about NYADA and moving to New York in a single email.

By the time Blaine had started his sophomore year at NYADA, he'd convinced himself that his friendship with Kurt worked best when Blaine offered up everything on his mind and when he made it clear that he was there for Kurt to do the same. It wasn't what he'd envisioned when they met, not the devotion that he'd thought would shine like the sun and halo both of them. It was better. It was a way of being together that brought them closer.

After dinner one night, Kurt turned to Blaine over their tiny café table and said, "So. I'm single. You're single. We're pretty amazing best friends."

"Yes?" Blaine replied, heart suddenly beating faster.

"Do you remember what you told me after Regionals your senior year?" Kurt looked down and adjusted his fork beside his empty plate.

Blaine nodded. "About when we were first together? And the things I wish I'd known how to say, and the things I didn't feel safe telling you? All that?"

Kurt smiled. "Yeah. Well, I've been thinking about that, and about the way we talk now."

Blaine held his breath.

"It doesn’t matter who I'm dating, Blaine, I always make sure there's room in my life for you. Not just as a roommate, but as someone special. Someone I confide in. Someone who confides in me. I think—" He paused. "I think we've figured out how to do this."

"How to be best friends?" Blaine asked, afraid to assume Kurt wanted more.

Kurt shook his head. "How to be partners. I'm ready to try again, if you want to."

"Oh Kurt," Blaine sighed. "Yes. _Yes,_ I want to try again."

They cleaned up their dinner dishes, stealing glances at each other and exchanging grins. Blaine felt every brush of their hands and bump of their shoulders as charged again as it had been four years ago.

"Santana won't be home for another two hours," Kurt whispered. "Want to cuddle on the couch?"

Blaine nodded. He settled under Kurt's arm, leaning into Kurt's side. They couldn't kiss yet, not like this, but Blaine didn't want to rush things. It had been Blaine's turn to pick the music, so his iPod was docked in the corner of the room, playing softly. A Norah Jones song came up, and Blaine couldn't resist.

"Feeling tired by the fire," he sang softly. "The long day is over." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kurt's face creasing into a fond smile.

"The wind is gone, asleep at dawn, the embers burn on." Blaine closed his eyes. He felt as much as heard Kurt humming through the instrumental bridge.

Blaine breathed in, filled with peace. "With no reprise, the sun will rise. The long day is over." He felt Kurt press a kiss to the top of his head.

"It is," Kurt murmured. "The long day is over."

And there they were, Blaine thought. A long day's work done, the sun going down on the parts of their past they've wrestled with, finally. Now they had the promise of a safe, warm sleep before the sun came up on a new chapter of their lives together.

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this fic comes from astronomical terminology: a solstice is either the longest day or longest night of the year, and an equinox is when day and night are in perfect balance.


End file.
